Linişti şi nelinişti

I watched Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter” during an eleven-hour flight from Amsterdam to Los Angeles after I read the news about the movie being pulled from the Japanese cinemas. Although considered as inappropriate for Japanby Warner Bros, the tsunami scenes in the beginning are a strong reason for Americans or Europeans to see it.

The film unveils the story of a woman, a boy and a man, all being connected by the afterlife. Marie Laley (Cecile de France), a French TV anchor, survived the tsunami wave that hit South Asia in 2005, but the backslashes impact on her career and love relationship. She finds her way through by writing a book, Hereafter, that somehow manages to bring all three under the same roof. Further on, a little boy from London dies in a car accident. His twin Markus (Frankie McLaren) shows signs of separation anxiety and develops an obsession for a cap, the only thing that connects him with his brother. Lastly, we have the American George Lonegan (Matt Damon), whose gift – or curse, as he puts it – is to communicate with dead close ones by simply touching anyone’s hand. Although he could make a fortune out of his ability, he works in a factory and attends cooking classes.

Not everyone will be touched by the movie. At least not by the whole if it. Those who have lost beloved relatives will search for some hankies when George, who initially refuses Markus, reaches his brother after the kid waits for hours like a stone outside the hotel George stays in. Others will be thrilled to see the love effect striking George and making him foresee a bright future for him and Marie. But the subject per se is, in the end, approached in the same old hollywoodian style. In fact, as Eastwood confessed to PsychologyToday.com, he was told by Alfred Hitchcock: “Clint, you must remember, it’s only a movie.”